Slowest attained pitcher speed

[Gantry]

Working on the FAQ and want to add a question about the slowest pitcher speed you can get.  It's been discussed before, but how low have you gone?  Low-20s?  

[japetus462]

I think the lowest I have ever seen...is 27-29.

[Shooty]

On the orinal NES RBI Baseball...the slowest you can get is 25.  Trust me.

[Mike D.]

I had a 28 MPH pitch once.

[fknmclane]

25

[capt_taco]

My slowest was 28 also... with a breaking ball.

Note: This is about as fast as you can RUN at top speed if you're in decent shape. That's a really slow pitch.

[Gantry]

Just played a 5-inning game with Berenguer and threw nothing but heat and slowballs.  By the 3rd he could hit 25mph but never got any lower.  So I'm going with 25 unless someone can prove that incorrect with a screenshot...

[capt_taco]

OK, my friend and I had several Irish Car Bombs and decided we'd spend about an hour trying to find absolute proof on this one. We gave it a few tries, using both starters and relievers, lefty and righty, overhand and underhand, walking every batter with all fastballs until the pitcher's strength was gone, then seeing how slow we could throw. Our conclusions:

1. Every pitcher behaves exactly the same when he's totally assed out, whether it's Nolan Ryan or Donnie Moore. This applies to both speed and curving ability.

2. For slowballs, the minimum speed is indeed 25, though this only happens about once every 6-7 pitches.

2a. No matter what, when a totally depleted pitcher throws a slowball, there's always a chance it will go up to 31 mph. This is regardless of whether you're trying to curve it or not.

2b. It appears that there is some amount of randomness to the actual speed of pitches; a totally depleted pitcher will throw slowballs that randomly range from 25-31 mph. Fastballs thrown by a dead pitcher are always between 48-56 mph. This led us to believe that a dead pitcher throws slowballs at about 28 mph, +/- 3 mph, and fastballs at 52 mph, +/- 4 mph. My guess is that there's a base speed, and some kind of random number generator adds to or subtracts from that. Anything more technical than that would be a question for Nightwulf.

3. Lefty/righty or overhand/underhand doesn't make a difference, as we proved with Steve Bedrosian and Jesse Orosco. They all end up exactly the same.

4. Beanballs don't make a difference, either, no matter whether they're at the front or the back of the batter's box. (I explored this because it always seemed to me that beanballs were far slower than ordinary pitches. Guess what -- they're not.)

Those are our findings, respectfully submitted. Extra notes:

After a few Irish Car Bombs, we ran out of Irish Cream and used some kind of Spanish chocolate liquer instead. I renamed the drink the "Spanish Train Bomb," for which I'll probably go to hell.

After doing this, my friend (who is not a big RBI player, just interested in the math of this problem) challenged me to a game. I was NY, he was Am. The results were not pretty:

[nightwulf]

1. Every pitcher behaves exactly the same when he's totally assed out, whether it's Nolan Ryan or Donnie Moore. This applies to both speed and curving ability.

Yeah, this is supported by the way pitcher stamina is known to work (found here).

2a. No matter what, when a totally depleted pitcher throws a slowball, there's always a chance it will go up to 31 mph. This is regardless of whether you're trying to curve it or not.

Curving the ball has no effect on the pitch. It's either a fastball, a sinker, or a "curve" ... physically curving the ball is not relevant to this distinction.

2b. ... My guess is that there's a base speed, and some kind of random number generator adds to or subtracts from that. Anything more technical than that would be a question for Nightwulf.

While I haven't really gotten my hands dirty with the pitching engine, I'd be willing to bet that that's how it works. There isn't really any better explanation.

Nightwulf

[capt_taco]

2b. ... My guess is that there's a base speed, and some kind of random number generator adds to or subtracts from that. Anything more technical than that would be a question for Nightwulf.

While I haven't really gotten my hands dirty with the pitching engine, I'd be willing to bet that that's how it works. There isn't really any better explanation.

Nightwulf

Egads! The great Nightwulf agrees with my drunken, caveman-level explanation?

Anyway, perhaps a better question is: What makes the minimum pitch speed stop at 25? (or 28, if you will)... and does the 3-4 mph variation in speed hold true when the pitcher isn't tired? (I'd bet my ass it does, but one never knows).

Obviously, the whole answer would take some "dirt on your hands" with the pitching engine, and I'll not be the one to push you into that unwillingly. But this also brings up other hypothetical questions, such as: If there was nothing limiting minimum pitch speed, what would happen to a -71 mph fastball if McGwire got a hold of it?  

As a resut of this little experiment, I've also gotten quite good at placing the ball exactly where I want to, even when the pitcher is completely dead. You may have answered this already, but I'd be interested to know what effect pitch speed has on the strength of a batted ball. Normal physics would tell you a faster pitch would produce more power, but it also seems you could just KILL 28 mph sinkers. I'd be interested to know how the game takes that into account, even if it's just a link to an existing thread.

[Gantry]

Well done Taco, though I have one critical question - what is an Irish Car Bomb?

What makes the minimum pitch speed stop at 25?

I think what happens is that once a pitcher's stamina runs out, their speed ratings for fastball, curve and slowball begin to decline at a consistently mathematical pace.  At the same point for every pitcher there is a floor - a bare minimum rating for fastball speed, curveball speed and slowball speed that can't be reduced.  One there, all pitchers will basically throw the same.  

I also think like you guys that the variation is related to the overall pitching engine and since everyone gets to the same point in terms of speed (and likely endurance since it'll be zero) they will have the same pitching attributes and variation levels in their pitches.  

Don't forget taco that you can use nightwulf's editor and give yourself some seriously high and low pitching speed stats, above and below wha the game itself allows.  Try that out for some fun...

[fknmclane]

Capt Taco, nice research.  Well done.

An Irish Car Bomb FUCKS YOU UP.  I haven't done one in quite a while, but I'm pretty sure it's a pint of Guinness with a shot of Bailey's dropped in it.  Th emain thing is that you have to chug it, a la sake bomber or boilermaker.

[Mike D.]

Nothing beats the Jager bomb.  NOTHING.  Shot of jager, half a glass of Red Bull. Gets you coming and going.

[Baines]

God bless the Jagerbomb.  A damn tasty beverage.  I hate Jager but i could drink Jagerbombs all night.

[Mike D.]

I once had a $200 bar tab because of Jager bombs.  Apparently I ordered 25 of them.  

[fknmclane]

Nothing beats the Jager bomb.  NOTHING.  Shot of jager, half a glass of Red Bull. Gets you coming and going.

This is the worst possible drink to order.  While it royally fucks you up and leaves you incoherent and also guarantees a blackout, it can also kill youl  But damn they're tasty.

[nightwulf]

For what it's worth, I finally remembered why I started looking at the pitching engine in the first place, which was this thread.

Any pitcher's slowest pitch is obviously the sinker (or whatever else you'd like to call it). Any bottomed out pitcher will have a sinker speed of 62 (not 64 as incorrectly stated in the pitcher stamina thread; for the pitcher to hit bottom the speed must be *less than* 64). I ran a speed of 62 through the formula, and came out with pitches ranging from 25 to 31mph.

So. not like it was necessary for me to confirm, but 25 is definitely the lowest anyone can possibly throw in the game.

Nightwulf